First and foremost, I bet that the ultimate goal is to build a great body that is also strong and athletic. However, muscles don’t grow easy and as expected, and they’re actually a consequence of your performance and execution over time, done only with basic and compound exercises. So yes, you need quite a simple-structured weekly routine around simple [but not necessarily easy] bodyweight exercises.
Hence, your fundamental and priority goals should be to master these basics: form, range of motion, and endurance so that you can build up reps and adaptability with time. Your body transformation comes as a consequence, very gradually, depending on your fitness and sports background but more so on how much you commit to a routine.
Now, as a general principle, I never recommend a routine to any beginner around skills and calisthenics elements such as levers, muscle-ups, or flags. This especially because many of the beginners don’t quite master the basics. It’s like placing the cart before the horses. Plus, doing too much skill and element training isn’t the best approach towards a safe, injury-free training and to achieve also a balanced muscular physique, head to toe.
Therefore, fundamental bodyweight training is what you should generally plan on doing for the first year. Depending on your current fitness level and how fast you adapt and progress, you may need from 6 months to 2 years to really master the basics of calisthenics and do a high range of sets and reps.
Mastering the basics means repping out flawlessly, without breaking down on form, shape, nor shrinking the range of motion.
By basic moves, I refer to compound exercises where multiple muscle groups work together in a system to provide the required strength and stabilization, plus coordination so you can rep out flawlessly, but not necessarily effortless.
Now let me categorize the big moves and show you the essential exercises because these are the ones you have to write down into your training log because they will compose your monthly training structure.
But before that, as a beginner, you need a training journal or notebook, but nothing electronic. The brain makes better connections when you actually write and not when you type on the keyboard.
I fancied old school methods more and wrote down all the exercises and the weekly training log.
You won’t need much aside from a dip station and a pull-up bar in terms of equipment. In the absence of all that, get your hands on a pair of gymnastic rings and search a steady and solid place to anchor them. Either way, they all do the job just right so don’t debate which is better between rings or bars.
More equipment than that is just a square empty floor, and what the nearby environment provides. It can be stairs, a short but steep hill. Perhaps, a box on which you can jump on, or pushup handles, but it’s not a must-have, rather a preference if you fancy diversifying.
Therefore, you’ll need to get creative. Otherwise, attend the gym and do your calisthenics training indoors where you have easy access to all the required tools and equipment.
As a beginner, another piece of equipment that might be of great use sometimes is the rubber elastic bands. You may need them to assist and make a difficult exercise slightly easier, plus it works the other way around too. So get a pair of bands of different intensities and resistances if you think you’re going to use them. Beginners usually acquire them for assistance at pull-ups or make the pushups a bit harder.
Moving forward and finally, to the list of essential exercises, you have a few major pushing and pulling moves, some extensions, and some variants.
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http://www.oldschool-calisthenic.ro/calisthenics-program-beginners/
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